The concept of presence has increasingly come to the foreground of networking applications and real-time communications. Presence often refers to the ability to detect whether a user is online and available. One example of an application that takes advantage of presence information is an Instant Messenger (IM) program. An IM program provides a method for user to send instant messages to other IM users on the Internet or on a network. IM is a type of communications service that enables a user to create a kind of private chat room with another individual in order to communicate in real time over the Internet. IM is analogous to a telephone conversation, but uses text-based, not voice-based, communication. Typically, the instant messaging system alerts a user whenever somebody on the user's private list is online. The user may then initiate a chat session with that particular individual.
However, presence for IM and other similar applications has been limited to presence information that is directly associated with a contact already established by the user. Presence of other users outside of the user's listed contacts has been unobtainable. Other applications have allowed for discovery of what devices are on a network, but not of the users. Presence information that has been provided, has been displayed by either cumbersome or obtrusive user interfaces. For example, an IM application is required to be open, running, and in view of the user in order to display the presence information.